


Kursk

by rohkeutta



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, Ficlet, Lack of Communication, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 03:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10936371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: Sometimes, Bucky thinks, leaving would be so much easier.





	Kursk

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally 100% angst with no happy shit. Thanks to Jo and Helene for beta reading!

Sometimes, Bucky thinks, leaving would be so much easier.

Steve’s sleeping off his broken nose, and Bucky’s sitting in the armchair next to the window, knees drawn up to his chest, as small as he can get. It’s dark and silent, like it has been ever since Steve came home, limping and grimacing, and Bucky looked up at him and didn’t say anything. Bucky isn’t sure how long he’s been in the chair. There’s a glass in his hand, but it was empty already when the front door went, and he can’t really remember what he was even drinking.

The notification light of Steve’s phone is blinking silently on the nightstand; a tiny, modern-age lighthouse. Bucky’s tired to his bones but wide awake, listening to Steve’s noisy breathing. He hasn’t slept for three days, except an hour here and there, when the house has been empty. At night he’s too twitchy, too wired up, too aware of Steve’s body on the other side of the mattress; of the solid warmth he’s not allowed to lean into anymore.

Steve didn’t even look at him tonight. They kept up the careful distance and the heavy silence through Steve stripping off his uniform, putting on a fresh t-shirt and pajama pants, and going to bed. Bucky wishes he wouldn’t try to read so much _countdown to end_ into it.

Bucky also wishes he had the nerve to just walk out.

It would be so much easier to just turn away, close the door and leave, than watch from the sidelines as Steve keeps throwing himself in the line of fire. Bucky knows why he does it, picks as many missions as he’s given; it’s so hard to be at home, skirt around the edges of the apartment, trying to avoid eye contact or physical contact, because they just don’t know how to speak to each other.

Bucky stays at home, anyway, wandering around the rooms and trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place; watches Steve turn up with increasing amount of injuries, like he doesn’t even care about himself enough to be careful.

Bucky doesn’t know why they just can’t fucking make it _work:_ it should be easy, with how much both of them have changed, twisted into something they never thought they’d be when they grew up. It should be easy, when all the ugly things inside them match, but instead it’s very pointedly _not_ easy. Bucky doesn’t know how to share a life with someone anymore; Steve never learnt how in the first place.

Sometimes Bucky wants to grab Steve by the shoulders, shake him a little, and demand something, anything; tell him that it’s not fair of him to look at Bucky like he’s the most precious thing in the universe, and then just _stop._ Bucky wants to shake him for answers; ask, _why did you hunt me down for so long just to stop wanting me_.

Bucky could’ve been happy, somewhere where he could be anonymous. He could’ve been, he’s sure of it. Maybe not very soon, but eventually. Eventually.

Instead what he gets is the pointed silence, the averted eyes, and words that die in his mouth. Steve deserves better, but so does he.

Bucky holds the glass, thinking that if he were his father, it would be half-filled with cheap bourbon; but his father has been six feet under since 1949, and there was never hope that Bucky would end up like him, anyway. The glass is empty, and he hasn’t slept in three days; the only meaningful relationship in his life is falling apart, and all Bucky wants to do is hide from the truth like a coward.

The weather outside is damp and foggy, and the chill seeps in through the leaking windows, filling the room like water fills a slowly sinking submarine.

Heaving machines. Knocking in the hull. The unstoppable trickle of water.

Bucky closes his eyes and sits for a long time in the dark room, listening to Steve breathe heavily through his mouth.

_Maybe tomorrow_ , he thinks. _Maybe tomorrow._

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com).


End file.
